Family, friends, gather to say goodbye to Baby Aurora, who was delivered before her mother died

A recent photo of Aurora Sky Brandi Ledoux, who died on Feb. 9 at the age of four. She was delivered prematurely after her mother, Brandy Lepine, sustained life-threatening injuries in a collision. A drunk driver hit the car Lepine and her friend Taylor Litwin were in.Photo supplied by Sara Mirasty / Saskatoon

Aurora Sky Brandi Ledoux, born shortly after her mother was fatally injured by a drunk driver, was laid to rest on Monday.

Aurora, who had dealt with medical problems since birth, recently became ill. Fluid built up in her lungs and on her brain, causing painful pressure that had to be relieved by medication. Her mother’s cousin, Sara Mirasty, reported last Wednesday that a doctor said that day would be the child’s last.

Aurora held on for more than a day, but died at the age of four on Feb. 9.

Brandi Roy Lepine was pregnant when she died in a car accident in Prince Albert in 2013. Her daughter Aurora Sky Brandi Ledoux was saved.

Aurora was delivered prematurely after her mother, Brandy Lepine, and friend Taylor Litwin were involved in a collision with a drunk driver in Prince Albert in July 2013.

The other car was driven by Jeremiah Jobb, whose blood alcohol level was found to be about two and a half times the legal limit. He was driving 154 kilometres per hour in a 50 km/h zone.

Litwin died, and Lepine was transported to hospital, where she died after Aurora’s birth.

Jobb was sentenced to four years in prison.

On Monday afternoon, family and friends gathered at St. Michael’s Parish in Prince Albert to say goodbye to Aurora.

“It was a very hard, difficult day. We were all breaking down off and on all day,” Mirasty told the StarPhoenix in a message on Monday after the funeral service.

Lepine’s mother and Mirasty’s aunt, Josephine Ledoux, had been Aurora’s primary caregivers since birth. Mirasty wrote

Josie Ledoux with her granddaughter Aurora on July 12,2014. Liam Richards /
THE CANADIAN PRESS

that the two were joined at the hip, always with each other. At the service, Mirasty said her aunt told her granddaughter to fly away home to her mother and sing and dance with her.

“She was such a beautiful, happy little girl who loved to sit by her grandma Josie while she played games,” Mirasty said of Aurora. When Ledoux had time she played PS4 video games and her granddaughter was her video game “partner.”

“I will miss everything about her. I miss her every single second, minute, every hour that goes by … she was the most innocent beautiful girl anybody could ever know. She loved everyone,” Mirasty said.